Besieged Gaza on verge of full collapse: UN

Besieged Gaza on verge of full collapse: UN

UN Middle East peace envoy Nickolay Mladenov called for restoring the government of Palestinian Authority to power in the besieged strip, warning “Without that Gaza risks exploding in our face again, this time in a far more deadly and violent manner than in the past”.

speaking at the annual conference of Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, Mladenov said Gaza Strip was on the verge of “full collapse” adding that, “I often say publicly, in (UN) Security Council briefings and in other formats, that we are in the midst of a major humanitarian crisis.”

“Let me be very clear today here, that we’re well beyond that,” he added. “We’re on the verge of a total systems failure in Gaza, with a full collapse of the economy, with social services, political, humanitarian and security implications stemming from that.”

Mladenov said he would raise those concerns in Brussels on Wednesday at a meeting of the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee, which coordinates international donor support for the Palestinians.

Israeli regime has launched several wars on the Palestinian coastal sliver, the last of which began in early July 2014. The military aggression, which ended on August 26, 2014, killed nearly 2,200 Palestinians. Over 11,100 others were also wounded in the war. The Gaza Strip has been under an Israeli siege since June 2007. The blockade has caused a decline in the standards of living as well as unprecedented levels of unemployment and unrelenting poverty.

The Israeli regime denies about 1.8 million people in Gaza their basic rights, such as freedom of movement, jobs with proper wages as well as adequate healthcare and education.